Sidewalks are Christmas!

Christmas was very nice this year!

We spent less on gifts and more time and effort on the time and meals we were going to share.  We enjoyed it all.

As we get older, I find that the emphasis is more on family time and less on material things.  And face it, at this point in my life if you're not getting me a Maserati GranTurismo or an all expense paid cruise to several European ports, there's only so many socks I can wear at one time and, since I left the job this summer, I really don't need any more ties!

I always have a need for chocolate covered cherries (scored those) and I like a new flannel shirt each year...they're warmer when they're fresh!

What I have come to understand is that I find Christmas in the little things that surround the holiday; the ones that make it easy.

There's the fact that the tree hasn't fallen over (yet).  Less cursing, no water damage to the floor, and we look forward to having most of the same ornaments on our tree next year.  It costs less if they don't break and, while we'll still find pine needles in strange places in June, there's no picking of colored pieces of glass out of feet.  (I didn't get new slippers).

The outdoor lights stayed lit, without a single bulb replacement, and the electrical burning smell we experienced last year has not returned.  Maybe those new light strings did the trick.

We have experienced a minor masking tape issue.  We stick cards that we receive to various spots on our walls, as decoration, but the masking tape I got this year is less sticky than usual.  At times, we'll hear a sharp crack.  I'm thinking it's a mouse trap securing a victim, but so far it's been about a dozen cards falling off the wall, making that noise as they strike the hardwood floor.

Not too much to complain about.  I did get new tape, I'm still indoors when I'm rehanging them, and I can do it in my pjs.  Not like last year, when the wreaths kept flying off the porch posts and shed doors and I had to track them out in the cold like a truancy officer.  I was ready to superglue them to their spots, after about a dozen trips outdoors to rescue them, but knew that would come back to haunt me (as in, my wife would find out).

Even without sidewalks, a few family members made it to the house.  Due to the fact that it's been more like Spring than Winter, the driveway hasn't turned into a skating rink and cars and people can come and go safely.  

I had amazingly low cookie breakage this year (that's a big thing for a cookie maker...if you remember I made ninety dozen sugar cookies and they can be fragile and break during frosting) and we've had five nights worth of meals out of a ham we bought for Christmas!

Okay, that wasn't planned.  We thought we were having company on the day after Christmas, but the famed nor'easter of that day put the kibosh on those plans.  I kept cutting ham, and cutting ham, and cutting ham, and it turned out to be the proverbial cornucopia of meat...tomorrow I'm turning the rest of it into soup.  From the looks of it, maybe ten gallons.

I know that's a lot of soup, but nowhere near as much snow as some places around us saw.  We got a dusting...maybe three inches...here's our deck after the snowstorm.

I did take out the snowblower to deal with the driveway, but more as, "Why not, it'll only take ten minutes," as opposed to having to do it by hand...I could have shoveled what was there.


If I had a sidewalk, I'd shovel that for sure.  Did I mention that I didn't get a sidewalk for Christmas?  Wanted one.

A city friend of mine who knows of my desire to be living adjacent to a sidewalk sent me a Christmas card, below, with the note that she hoped she hadn't invoked city sidewalk envy.  She did.  

To poke me in the face, on the front of that one card, there are representations of just a few of the people she sees in just a day, yet more than I see in a year in my neighborhood.

True, I could drive all over the place to find most, but she can walk out the front of her place, greet the doorman, get almost run over by a bicycle, jump out of the way of a guy walking thirteen dogs, as she passes the neighbor (mumbling to himself) who works on Wall Street, check out all of the shoppers in the stores lining her sidewalk, wave to cabbies if she wants a ride (or just to confuse them), order food to be walked to her place, catch a bagel on almost any corner, shake her head at the kid skateboarding in the middle of the street, point out any number of famous people hiding behind sun glasses, have a Broadway star or starlet wait on her at her favorite restaurant (that she can walk to because her sidewalks connects to the one by that place), and bask in the glory of nature as she views the pigeons in Central Park (or on any building anywhere).  Okay, pigeons aren't high on the list of nature's "must sees," I admit, but they beat running into a bear or cougar.

You see, I did have a bear run towards me in my driveway one day, and I can state they are much more intimidating than a pigeon.  Although, now that I say that I have to tell you that I've never had a pigeon come after me, so I should hold back on further thoughts about that.

Anyway, I don't know what all of this means.  Except, I think that people connections are really important, and the holidays prove that as people make the time and put out the effort to get together.  Sidewalks connect people to people, and make it easier for them to get together, so sidewalks help to make Christmas!

Wouldn't it be nice to have Christmas all year long (I'll find that sidewalk, yet!)